This section is intended to introduce various aspects of the art, which may be associated with exemplary embodiments of the present techniques. This discussion is believed to assist in providing a framework to facilitate a better understanding of particular aspects of the present techniques. Accordingly, it should be understood that this section should be read in this light, and not necessarily as admissions of prior art.
The combustion of fuel within a combustor, e.g., integrated with a gas turbine, can be controlled by monitoring the temperature of the exhaust gas. At full load, typical gas turbines adjust the amount of fuel introduced to a number of combustors in order to reach a desired combustion gas or exhaust gas temperature. Conventional combustion turbines control the oxidant introduced to the combustors using inlet guide vanes. At partial load, the amount of oxidant introduced to the combustor is reduced and the amount of fuel introduced is again controlled to reach the desired exhaust gas temperature. At partial load, the efficiency of gas turbines drops because the ability to reduce the amount of oxidant is limited by the inlet guide vanes, which are only capable of slightly reducing the flow of oxidant. Further, the oxidant remains at a constant lower flow rate when the inlet guide vanes are in their flow restricting position. The efficiency of the gas turbine then drops when it is at lower power production because to make that amount of power with that mass flow a lower expander inlet temperature is required. Moreover, existing oxidant inlet control devices may not allow fine flow rate control and may introduce large pressure drops with any restriction on the oxidant flow. With either of these approaches to oxidant control, there are potential problems with lean blow out at partial load or reduced pressure operations.
Controlling the amount of oxidant introduced to the combustor can be desirable when an objective is to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust gas. Current carbon dioxide capture technology is expensive due to several reasons. One reason is the low pressure and low concentration of carbon dioxide in the exhaust gas. The carbon dioxide concentration, however, can be significantly increased from about 4% to greater than 10% by operating the combustion process under substantially stoichiometric conditions. Further, a portion of the exhaust gas may be recycled to the combustor as a diluent in order to control the temperature of the exhaust gas. Also, any unused oxygen in the exhaust gas may be a contaminate in the captured carbon dioxide, restricting the type of solvents that can be utilized for the capture of carbon dioxide.
In many systems, an oxidant flow rate may be reduced by altering the operation of a separate oxidant system. For example, an independent oxidant compressor may be throttled back to a slower operating speed thereby providing a decreased oxidant flow rate. However, the reduction in compressor operating speed generally decreases the efficiency of the compressor. Additionally, throttling the compressor may reduce the pressure of the oxidant entering the combustor. In contrast, if the oxidant is provided by the compressor section of the gas turbine, reducing the speed is not a variable that is controllable during power generation. Gas turbines that are used to produce 60 cycle power are generally run at 3600 rpm. Similarly, to produce 50 cycle power the gas turbine is often run at 3000 rpm. In conventional gas turbine combustor operations the flow of oxidant into the combustor may not warrant significant control because the excess oxidant is used as coolant in the combustion chamber to control the combustion conditions and the temperature of the exhaust gas. A number of studies have been performed to determine techniques for controlling combustion processes in gas turbines.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,313 to Willis, et al., discloses a combustion chamber with separate, valved air mixing passages for separate combustion zones. A combustion chamber assembly includes a primary, a secondary and a tertiary fuel and air mixing ducts to supply fuel and air to each of primary, secondary and tertiary combustion zones, respectively. Each of the primary, secondary and tertiary fuel and air mixing ducts includes a pair of axial flow swirlers, which are arranged coaxially to swirl the air in opposite directions and fuel injectors to supply fuel coaxially to the respective axial flow swirlers. Valves are provided to control the supply of air to the primary and the secondary fuel and air mixing ducts respectively. A duct is arranged to supply cooling air and dilution air to the combustion chamber. The amount of air supplied to the primary, secondary and tertiary fuel and air mixing ducts and the duct is measured.
International Patent Application Publication No. WO/2010/044958 by Mittricker, et al., discloses methods and systems for controlling the products of combustion, for example, in a gas turbine system. One embodiment includes a combustion control system having an oxygenation stream substantially comprising oxygen and CO2 and having an oxygen to CO2 ratio, then mixing the oxygenation stream with a combustion fuel stream and combusting in a combustor to generate a combustion products stream having a temperature and a composition detected by a temperature sensor and an oxygen analyzer, respectively. The data from the sensors are used to control the flow and composition of the oxygenation and combustion fuel streams. The system may also include a gas turbine with an expander and having a load and a load controller in a feedback arrangement.
International Patent Application Publication No. WO/2009/120779 by Mittricker, et al., discloses systems and methods for low emission power generation and hydrocarbon recovery. One system includes integrated pressure maintenance and miscible flood systems with low emission power generation. Another system provides for low emission power generation, carbon sequestration, enhanced oil recovery (EOR), or carbon dioxide sales using a hot gas expander and external combustor. Another system provides for low emission power generation using a gas power turbine to compress air in the inlet compressor and generate power using hot carbon dioxide laden gas in the expander.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,428 to Paul discloses an advanced integrated propulsion system with total optimized cycle for gas turbine. Paul discloses a gas turbine system with integrated high and low pressure circuits having a power transmission for extracting work from one of the circuits, the volume of air and fuel to the respective circuits being varied according to the power demand monitored by a microprocessor. The turbine system has a low pressure compressor and a staged high pressure compressor with a combustion chamber and high pressure turbine associated with the high pressure compressor. A combustion chamber and a low pressure turbine are associated with the low pressure compressor, the low pressure turbine being staged with the high pressure turbine to additionally receive gases expended from the high pressure turbine and a microprocessor to regulate air and gas flows between the compressor and turbine components in the turbine system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,664 to Earnest discloses a turbine engine with exhaust gas recirculation. The engine has a main power turbine operating on an open-loop Brayton cycle. The air supply to the main power turbine is furnished by a compressor independently driven by the turbine of a closed-loop Rankine cycle which derives heat energy from the exhaust of the Brayton turbine. A portion of the exhaust gas is recirculated into the compressor inlet during part-load operation.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0064653 by Hagen, et al., discloses partial load combustion cycles. The part load method controls delivery of diluent fluid, fuel fluid, and oxidant fluid in thermodynamic cycles using diluent to increase the turbine inlet temperature and thermal efficiency in part load operation above that obtained by relevant art part load operation of Brayton cycles, fogged Brayton cycles, or cycles operating with some steam delivery, or with maximum steam delivery.
While some past efforts to control the oxidant flow rate have implemented oxidant inlet control devices, such systems disclosed a control of all of the combustors together, failing to account for differences between combustors. Further, the systems were limited in their ability to finely tune the oxidant flow rate.